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When the Steps Don’t Match the Beat
If you’re designing a learning experience and it seems like the participants are still not getting it, you might be suffering from the curse of knowledge. In a dance class this week, the instructor expressed something that turned on a few lightbulbs among the students: the steps are not the same as the beat. So…
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The Idea DJ method to unblock creativity
As anyone working on research or creative projects knows, there are moments when ideas feel fuzzy, and articulating them becomes a challenge. The process of refining and developing ideas can be daunting when exploring new concepts. I want to share how I use AI tools like ChatGPT to break through those creative blocks and refine…
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Making “think twice” a tangible tool for learning
In a given piece of text, we can find some elements more interesting than others. Once core aspect of developing creativity and critical thinking is developing your sense of taste—or at the very least forming an awareness of what you’re attention naturally gravitates towards. From there, the next step is to analyze why you gravitated…
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We often forget the cast and crew
I wasn’t particularly excited for the eclipse. Despite my building’s rooftop being directly in the line of totality, my feelings were veering on indifference. My partner felt otherwise. She had bought us glasses and made sure our schedule was clear. When the time finally came, we went up to the terrace where some neighbours were…
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Focus on how you work with AI, not what it answers
90% of the value I derive from ChatGPT comes from thinking about my prompt. In forcing myself to think out loud and give instructions to a responsive system, it gives me clarity. The response from ChatGPT almost becomes irrelevant. This doesn’t work as effectively if I were to write into an empty notepad. That’s because…
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Navigating the Open Waters of an Early-Stage Product
I’ve been sharing videos and links to the tool we’re building called Flota. At the surface, it’s a new interface for instructors to create agendas. Yet our hope is to improve the experience of creating in-class sessions… So how do we know an agenda builder is the right place to start? This is the meta…
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In my class, you surf alone and get feedback together
Every year, I try to refine the intentions of the 6 month UX certificate I teach. This experience has been incredibly educational for me in understanding how people extract information from what is presented to them. My intentions as an instructor can be interpreted in a plethora of ways that are outside my control. To…
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23 things I learned in 2023 about how we communicate
Talking is exciting, infuriating, and wonderfully human. As an extrovert and a teacher, I think a lot about communication and how we can make it more enjoyable, intentional, and effective. Here’s a list of 23 observations I made during the tens of thousands of conversations I had in 2023. They have been curated down from…
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Intellectual Nutrition Labels for Generative AI Products
If a generative AI had a nutrition label that said “100 brain calories per ChatGPT response”, would that change how you use it? Nutrition could serve as a metaphor to understand why taking a tempered approach with generative AI might be important for our intellectual health. For starters, not all calories are created equal. 100…
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How we learn is changing. Why am I worried?
I’m deeply worried about the future of learning, but I can’t put my finger on why. For a while it was because of all the noise coming from the media and technology. It divided the population and created a sea of information that’s difficult to validate. Later, I started to become concerned with all the…
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Simplicity's Double-Edged Sword in the Information Age
We’re obsessed with simplicity. It’s alluring and inflammatory all at once. We want to simplify everything, and we want to draw the line on when something is too simple. “Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Though there is no confirmed source, the quote is often attributed to Albert Einstein. It’s about…
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Embracing the AI Mindshift: From Google to ChatGPT
📰 This post originally appeared on the Pragmatics Studio blog. Whether we like it or not, thinking will happen through AI, as it happens today through Google. We will ask language models how to deal with a broken heart the way we started doing that with the search giant. Generate recipes. Deal with grief. Diagnose…